The life of sustainability and sanity in a world that is not

From The Basement, To the Coop, To the Real World

It is such a sense of accomplishment to see the coop now being used by the birds it was built for. Last Friday the chickens embarked on a rather bumpy ride to the farm from our grow room in the city. I am happy to say that the one who’s foot was caught under the cage (we’ve been calling it “Hoppy”) is now starting to put weight on it again. It looks as though she/he will make a full recovery.

Today, I hooked up and activated the automatic chicken door and the little teenagers got to come outside for the first time and experience the entire coop and run. As of this writing (which is 5:30 in the afternoon mountain time), they have been running around, scratching and pecking and dust bathing and having a righteous old time! You can always tell if they are content because they will make little trilling sounds. When you hear that you know all is right with the world.

They are certainly cautious. Their world just got infinitely bigger than the galvanized water tank of their brooding. They heard a couple of wild birds outside the coop and they all, as if wired together, stopped and looked up on command. It happened again and they all scurried for the interior of the barn area attached to the coop.

I don’t yet know which ones are roosters, as they are too young yet. But there is at least one bird standing watch. I heard a couple of warning barks in the afternoon and the rest ran to congregate next to each other as though there was strength in numbers. As they figured out that they weren’t in mortal danger, they slowly spread out again to do whatever it is they seem to like doing. So far it seems like a pretty simple life: Eat, sleep, scratch n peck, drink, poop…. with a few little temper skirmishes along the way.

It has been fun to watch them grasp just how big their playpen really is. They have all been trying to do running take offs and stretching out their wings. I am thinking that although I put the netting cover over the run to keep out hawks, it may serve as good a purpose to keep the chickens IN!

All has gone extremely well with this mind-bogglingly long project. I sat there for awhile watching them thinking, “this is all good”. Proud construction manager/farmer.